For long we have been hearing about, companies operating on a global scale yet not owning any assets that they deal in. Yes, a leading example in this context has been Airbnb – one the foremost rental aggregators or probably the largest operates globally but doesn’t own any rental asset, and another frequently quoted company has been Uber – largest or the leading ride hailing company doesn’t own any cabs and operates globally.
These companies built a business model around enabling services around assets without having to own or acquire them and have successfully scaled globally. The global footprint is the proof of widespread acceptance of such concepts in far flung areas and remote corners of the globe. This has automatically created a digital ecosystem for such services and has caused a paradigm shift in terms of the need to own assets to operate on.
For over a decade now, there is another major shift in terms of the computing infrastructure and the Cloud based Infra adoption has been growing as well. For most companies, the Infra has now become Invisible but Highly Available (99.9999% uptime) and offering pay-as-you-go options to lower the barrier of entry and scale/sustain on-demand.
The onslaught of Covid-19 has forced a large majority of companies to enable remote-working function in a very short span and thus trek or initiated them into the Digitalization journey. For many companies involved in distributed development, this New-Normal, would probably be seeming like an extension rather than a challenge.
In most Countries & for most Companies, the lock-down period has probably spanned over a month and given the needed proof points to evaluate the remote-working approach further maybe even as a strategy on multiple dimensions. Apart from reduced commute time & effort, increased availability & possibly some efficiency gains, the cost of conducting business would be standing out as the winner in this situation backed by the success of remote-working. This probably has triggered strategic re-alignments in the way to conduct business leveraging the remote-working paradigm at such scales (TCS announcing to have 25% of workforce remotely working as a fixed guideline by 2025).
This will also enable access to a larger pool of talent (who stopped working owning to non-availability of remote working) and flexible engagement options (operating timings, part-time). People having constraints and needing to work remotely, can mention and ask for engaging without shying about its acceptance.
Interesting times ahead as the Businesses stabilize with this unprecedented global lock-down and its impact, #TeleWorking is here to stay. It has moved from a tactical option to a Strategic consideration. Like Airbnb’s and Uber’s surged forward without having Asset’s to operate on, it’s high time for other companies for a lean operations makeover. Existing tools, options to engage remotely – Virtual Presence and connectivity, have seen much wider adoption and stabilization.
Like the transition from the In-house to Cloud Infra, switching over to Remote-Working as a mainstay model of working would get further impetus. It will also lead to emergence of a new technology domain around activity alignment and monitoring solutions to further help enable and improve efficiencies in the coming time. Today it has become the need of the hour. Tomorrow it will lead.
